The Metroid
by paco fajita
Summary: Another HaloMetroid crossover. Samus and Master Chief explore Beta Halo. Post events from entire Metroid series and Halo 3. I'm thinking it will eventually turn into a SamusChief love story. Chapter 5 finished.
1. Chapter 1

She shivered a bit in the cool of her ship. The suit was bulky and she only wore it when necessary. Now was not the time. Goose pimples formed on her forearm, making the fine, blonde hairs on her arm stand on end. She rubbed her arm to fend off the chill.

"Adam," she said, though she was the only person in the confines of the small, yellow ship drifting through random celestial particles.

A disembodied voice answered happily, "Yes, Lady?"

"Please increase ship's temperature by two degrees," she said.

The console flickered. "Yes, Lady. Ambient ship's temperature now 26 degrees Celsius."

Sighing, happy the temperature was warming the ship, she said, "Thank you Adam," then sipped her tea.

Samus Aran, the pilot of the vessel, was enjoying a moment of solitude, usually interrupted by excursions to alien worlds, fending off Phazon beasts and devilish Metroids. Standing at six feet even, Samus was a tall, stout woman, but still enjoyed the softer things in life when not running from the space pirates threatening the galaxy. "Adam, play Bach."

"Yes, Lady," the console responded, and then started playing _Cello Suite No. 1_.

Samus sighed, turned of the heads up display on the dash and said, "I'm going to take a bath."

The system acknowledged her as she got up from the pilot's seat of her ship and walked to the back room.

She stood over the tub and twisted a red knob, then a blue knob. The tub began to fill. Pulling the broach from her hair, she ran her fingers through her hair, then pulled off the red tank top she'd been wearing. After removing her shorts, she dipped her toe into the now-filled tub and lowered herself into the warm water. Reveling in her moment of relaxation, she sighed hard and reached out, thinking of pouring herself a glass of wine, but the food storage unit was out of reach. She sighed and closed her eyes.

The music had gone through the prelude and into the _second movement, Allemande_ when the ship jolted suddenly, sloshing some of the water from the tub onto the hard, metal floor. The ship's internal alarm began blaring, startling Samus from her daze. She jumped from the tub, grabbed a towel and ran into the ship's control room.

"Adam, what is it?" she asked the computer.

A series of lights on the console flickered and a readout displayed on the ship's access panel. Finally answered, Adam replied, "Space pirates, coordinates 141 mark 243."

"Evasive maneuvers!" Samus cried, jumping into the pilot's seat.

The ship's thrusters threw the ship to the left, responding to the fire from the approaching enemy ship.

Pounding the console, Samus cried, "Return fire, Adam!"

The ship jerked, recoiling from the plasma cannon blast directly under the cockpit.

"Hit, Lady!" Adam cried.

The pirate ship fired on Samus' ship, striking the left engine core. The explosion sent the ship careening away from the approaching pirate ship, directly into a piece of interstellar junk covered in a strange blue material.

The firing stopped.

Samus pulled the towel back around herself—which had fallen off during the course of the battle—and said, "Status report."

Adam flickered and whirred, showing a display of the ship's hull and said, "Pirate ship fleeing on course 223 mark 435, unable to pursue. Right engine heavily damaged and leaking drive plasma."

Samus read the readout on the display and said, "How far are we from the nearest Galactic Federation outpost?"

Adam showed a map on the screen and said, "Five point two light years. Shall I send a distress beacon, Lady?"

Before Samus could reply, the internal sensors flickered again. "Is it the space pirates?"

"No, Lady," Adam said. "The unknown matter on the debris is infiltrating the hull through the tear in the engine coil and reacting…" Adam's voice faded and the lights went out. Immediately, the reserve system kicked in and Adam continued, "… with the drive plasma from the engine."

Samus pressed a button on the console, opening a drawer full of clothing. "I guess I'll have to check it out," she said, grabbing a new top and shorts from it.

She opened the door to the cabinet holding her Varia suit and began integrating herself with it.

Fully dressed, she turned on the suit's self-sustaining life support system and walked to the air lock to see the problem with the ship. She pressed the button, sealing the chamber and opening the hatch. Free floating in space, Samus maneuvered herself to the dorsal area of the ship to inspect the damage, still wary of the previous space pirate threat.

With her suit's internal sensors, she ran her hand over the hole in the ship trying to determine the composition of the new metal compound forming, rendering a readout on her visor's HUD.

In the helmet, Adam's voice said, "PLUTONIUM 15.08 percent, TANTALUM 18.0 percent, XENON 27.71 percent, PROMETHIUM 24.02 percent, DIALUM 10.62 percent, MERCURY 4.0 percent..." the readout stopped. "UNKNOWN 0.57 percent."

"Hmm," Samus said. "Unknown…"

The display in her visor faded away, once again showing the hole in the ship and the open chasm of space around her. Suddenly, the compound began to react, creating a small, blue hole around the ship.

The sensors in Samus' helmet began blinking and Adam said, "Lady, please return to the ship. A subspace fracture is forming."

Alarmed, Samus clambered up the side of the ship and back through the hatch. She threw herself back through it and pressed the button resealing the air lock and reinstating the artificial gravity. "Adam, get us out of here!" she cried, stumbling back through the air lock and into the cockpit.

A jolt rocked the ship and the window into space was consumed in the blue hole, shaking the ship into it.

Samus screamed, tumbling through the ship, shearing itself apart from the tear in space.

Then suddenly, it stopped. The internal sensors in her visor showed the atmosphere was stable in her ship. She pulled off her helmet and said, "Adam, status!"

Static. "_Skreet… schhh… _25 percent to dor _screech… blip… _approaching large circular structure. _Screech…_ habitable atmosphere."

"Adam's down," Samus mumbled to herself. She approached the console and pressed a small button, causing a small control stick to emerge from the dash. "Firing maneuvering thrusters," Samus said, moving the ship slowly down to the surface of the ring.

---

"Chief."

The chamber holding the large, green-suited man whirred to life. "Cortana," he said.

"John, the ship's battery is almost dead. I've been rerouting all the major systems to turn off as much as possible to keep the stasis chamber intact and my own system. A subspace rupture triggered an energy leak. And…" Cortana stopped.

"Yes?" Master Chief replied, jumping from the pod, then testing his orientation in the chasm of space.

"There's bad news and worse news. Which do you want to hear first?" the female computer construct said, looking disparaged.

"The worse news. But first, any word from ONI or UNSC?" Chief asked, taking Cortana's program from the console and inserting it into his helmet.

Cortana sighed and said, "None, and we're approaching another Halo. Coordinates show this is Halo Beta. We're approximately 15,000 light years away from the remains of the Ark."

Chief walked over to a weapons locker, retrieved a battle rifle and said, "Then we've gone through a slipstream to the other side of the galaxy. How long have I been out?"

"Five and a half years," Cortana replied, internally configuring the Chief's armor and temperature systems.

"Then that means…" the Chief started, stretching his arm, limbering the gel coating inside his suit.

"The worse news," she diffused.

Chief sighed, his arms showing his depression. "Your program's lifespan is almost over."

Cortana didn't reply.

Resolute, Master Chief walked to the edge of the hangar bay open to space and looked at the Halo in his visor. He grabbed a thrust pack from the side of the bay and said, "We're leaving."

He stepped into space, using the thruster to approach Beta Halo. "What do we know," the Chief asked?

"Not much," Cortana replied. "A small, yellow craft of unknown origin landed in sector 8 about 15 minutes ago. My calculations show the ship is the source of the anomaly that drained the _Forward Unto Dawn's_ power supply."

Firing the thruster again, accelerating into the Halo's gravity, Chief said, "Covenant remnant?"

"I can't be sure," Cortana replied. "At our current trajectory, we'll land in sector 7, five klicks from the ship's landing site."

Still gaining speed and draining the MJOLNIR Mark VI armor's heat shield, Master Chief landed with a hard thump in a snowy region, melting the snow around him into a big puddle of water.

Dripping wet with steam pouring off him, Master Chief got to his feet, inspecting his armor for damage, then grabbed his weapon. "Saddle up..." he started. "...lock and load."

Cortana laughed and said, "Let's go Clint Eastwood."

"Who?" the Chief asked, curious as to her reference.

"Nevermind," Cortana sighed. "If we get back to Earth…"

The Chief interrupted her, saying, "When…"

Cortana sighed again and said, "_When_ we get back to Earth, you're going to read a history book."


	2. Chapter 2

For the last hour, Samus had been working to repair the damage to her ship. Having contained the drive plasma leak from her engine core, she was working diligently to patch the hole, waiting for Adam's system to reboot to correct the computer core's problems.

She focused the beam from her gun-arm into a tight stream, soldering a temporary metal plate over the damaged hull in order to get back into space for permanent repairs at a Galactic Federation outpost. Then, Samus heard, "Lady, all systems operational."

Samus wiped her sweaty brow and said, "Glad to have you back Adam. I was getting lonely." She picked up her helmet from the soft grass and walked back to the ship's hatch.

Adam responded, getting down to business, "This habitat ring's structure does not appear in either the pirate's journal or Federation star logs. The closest approximation to compare self-sustaining environments would be a Dyson Sphere."

"A Dyson Sphere, huh?" Samus quizzed, viewing the readings from the ship's HUD. "Send out a distress beacon to the Galactic Federation. Let them know I've found a new research entry. Any life found on the ring?"

Adam's system whirred and buzzed as a small _thunk_ shook the ship, sending the subspace buoy outward from the ring. "No Lady, no fauna detected, however, many species of arboreal and coniferous flora, consistent with Terran specie are found in different physiographic and climatic regions."

"Terran," Samus mumbled, wondering why plants from Earth would be on a ring on the other side of the galaxy.

"Yes, Lady," Adam responded, "Further scans report the…"

The ship's proximity sensors began to wail, alerting Samus to an approaching object.

"What is it, Adam?" Samus asked, triggering the ship's ventral camera to see the object.

"Unknown, but configuration appears to be humanoid," Adam replied.

Shoving the helmet back on her head, the suit's air seal pressurized her inside the suit as she jumped through the ship's air lock, charging the beam in her gun arm.

"Identify yourself!" Samus screamed at the approaching bogey, vocalizing through the suit's speaker.

The green invader stopped around ten feet in front of her, pointed his assault rifle at Samus and said, "You first! Discharge your weapon and confirm your rank and serial number, Spartan!"

Confused, Samus said, "Spartan? What the hell are you talking about? Who are you? Lower your weapon!"

Inside the Chief's head, he heard Cortana say, "Hold on, Chief, her armor configuration doesn't match any suit design from Dr. Halsey's Spartan II program."

"Not Covenant based, either, Cortana?" the Chief asked, still on his guard at the intruder in front of him.

"Hmm," Cortana said. "Not that I can tell. It's not like any armor Elites or Brutes wore during the war."

Hoping to end the standoff, Samus said, "If you lower your weapon, I'll lower mine."

The Chief shrugged his shoulders and lowered his weapon. Samus also discharged her weapon's charge. "Now identify yourself," Samus said.

Walking closer to Samus, the Chief said, "I am Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command."

Confused, Samus jumped from the top of her ship and said, "United Nations Space Command? You're not with the Galactic Federation?"

"Galactic Federation?" The Chief was confused.

"Space pirates?" Samus further asked.

"What the hell are you talking about?" He was still confused.

Inside his head, Cortana said, "It's OK Spartan. The Galactic Federation was Earth's first attempt to establish good relations with other worlds in the early 21st century. It's what alerted the Covenant to Earth's development and social progression almost 400 years ago. It's why they wanted Earth to join before the war started, but waited another 350 years to observe human development before offering candidacy into the Covenant. You really need to learn your history, John."

The Chief crossed his arms and said, "Four hundred years ago? Tell me, what year is it?" the Chief asked.

"Galactic year 2042."

The Chief laughed. "I believe you're mistaken. It's Terran year 2561."

"2561…" Samus muttered defensively.

Samus pulled off her helmet, still lingering over the Chief's last statement. She mouthed the year.

The Chief was taken aback at Samus. He was surprised to see she was not only human, but a woman as well. And a beautiful one to boot. "What's your name?" he asked.

Still working to regain her composure, Samus said, "Err, I'm Samus Aran. Bounty hunter for the Galactic Federation of Planets."

Cortana, having identified Samus' transponder frequency, said to the both of them, "Bounty hunting was outlawed with the Qo'noS Peace Accords of 2237."

"Who the hell was that?" Samus said, pulling the earpiece from her ear. "What happened to Adam?"

"Easy there," the Chief said. "That was Cortana. An AI construct who's been with me for years."

With both parties thoroughly confused and getting nowhere talking in circles, a silence grew between them. Samus was lost in her thoughts of how she'd ended up over 400 years in the future, while Master Chief was lost in other thoughts—thoughts concerning the Flood and what being on another Halo meant. The war may have been over, but there were still four Halos that needed to be destroyed, in case another alien race decided to fire them.

Although she didn't say it, Cortana was monitoring the rise in Master Chief's endorphin levels. It made her jealous. She thought there was something between them, considering he mounted a suicide mission by boarding the Flood-infested Covenant capitol city _High Charity_ to retrieve her. Perhaps it was all the time they spent together, after she chose him as her Spartan before helping him with his mission on Chi Ceti 4 to retrieve his first armor suit, the MJOLNIR Mark IV armor. In all their years together, even before the excursion to Delta Halo, she'd felt an intense connection with him. It could have been Dr. Halsey's programming, causing her to extrapolate scenarios to an almost infinite degree, giving her hope deep down in her base algorithms that one day something could work between them, but her rationale subroutines told her otherwise, coming into conflict with her emotion protocols.

Samus finally broke the silence and said, "What's your name? It can't be 'Spartan unit number 117 of the United Nations Space Command' like you said," she said, mocking his earlier statement.

"You can call me Chief. Or Spartan, if you prefer," the Chief said.

Flustered, Samus effused, not knowing his name, but inside she felt a connection with this man. It wasn't anything serious (or so she thought), but it seemed to be camaraderie—a battlefield kinship she felt deep down inside—and knew they had been cut from the same mold.

"Right. Chief. Nice suit," Samus said. "Now can you tell me where we are? I've never seen technology like this before. Not even from the Chozo. It's amazing."

"The suit is standard military issue," the Chief said. "And we're on Halo. A weapons facility built by the Forerunners, used to eliminate the food source of the Flood—the most dangerous parasite threat in the galaxy."

In Samus' mind, she was recalling her experience with the X Parasite, which almost killed her on Planet SR-388, home of the devilish Metroids, created by the Chozo to destroy the X Parasite.

"The Flood…" Samus muttered, sticking her helmet back on her head. "If it's anything as bad as the Metroids, then we need to eliminate it."

Without question, and liking the go-get 'em-ness of this new woman in his life, Master Chief lifted his battle rifle and said, "I like your style. Let's go Samus."


	3. Chapter 3

In the span of an hour, Samus and Master Chief had hardly spoken. Each of them wanting to ask the other questions, but Cortana was keeping the Chief in check by reminding him that by telling Samus anything about the future risked the integrity of the timeline. Samus, on the other hand, had spent so much time investigating planets on her own didn't know what to say to a partner on this most recent journey.

On several occasions, she'd open her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. Luckily for her, the helmet hid her facial expressions, not hinting to the Chief she wanted to say something.

Finally breaking the silence, the Chief said to her, "I think I should tell you about our enemy."

Without waiting for Samus to respond, the Chief went into his response about the deadliness of the Flood. "The Flood is a parasitic entity, assimilating all bio-organic life forms into its own collective, originating from a hive mind known as the Gravemind. Its sole purpose is to destroy all life in the universe. That's why the Halos were constructed by the Forerunners—to eliminate its food source to keep it from feeding. Ergo: us."

Samus responded, "Resistance is futile, eh?"

The Chief scoffed. "You have no idea."

"Sounds a bit like the Metroids," Samus said.

"Metroids?" the Chief asked quizzically.

"It means 'ultimate warrior' in the Chozo language," Samus answered truthfully. "They're energy-based life forms originally created to destroy the X Parasite on Planet SR-388, but the ecosystem went rampant, causing the Metroids to multiply at an exponential rate."

The Chief looked at her. "All that for one germ?"

"You have no idea. Because of the space pirates, Metroids almost destroyed the planet Zebes and Tallon 4—even though Zebes did end up being destroyed in the long run. The Metroids drain your very soul from your body," Samus said angrily, yet defensively, even though she knew the Chief had no clue about the destructiveness of her greatest foe.

"In fact," Samus started. "I carry a hybrid DNA of human and Metroid, protecting me from the effects of the X Parasite, which almost killed me."

Unable to respond with anything but a reply, the Chief said, "I… I'm sorry." He was at a loss for words for the first time in his career. He had no clue what was coming over him.

Changing the subject, the Chief went back to the Flood and the Forerunners. "The Flood is no laughing matter. I lost a lot of good Marines to the Flood. It destroys everything in its path and lives for nothing but destruction."

Approaching the gate to Beta Halo's massive library, the Chief said, "Be prepared. We never know what we'll find in here."

The Chief reached out, pointing to the reinforced bulkhead and said to Samus, "Can your beam cut through this metal shielding?"

Samus configured her beam arm to fire a continuous burst. "I don't know, but I can try."

Aiming her arm to the wall, she began cutting a large hole, big enough for the two of them to pass through easily, when from above them defensive sentinels poured from an open hatch, attacking the Chief and Samus.

"Samus!" the Chief cried. "Sentinels! Shoot!"

"You don't have to tell me twice," Samus said, charging her beam, then releasing the energy onto one of the sentinels, causing it to fall to the snowy surface of the ring.

The Chief rolled right and began firing his battle rifle at the closest sentinels, narrowly missing it's fiery energy cannon.

"Chief!" Cortana cried. "Look, it's a Monitor!"

Above them, a Monitor, similar to Delta Halo's 343 Guilty Spark was observing the fight, laughing manically to itself, sending two new sentinels out to dispatch Samus and Master Chief.

Samus space jumped up to one of the sentinels, then coiled into the morphing ball, deploying two morph ball bombs, one destroying the sentinels and the second sending her into the air, landing on another sentinel. She set off one more bomb, destroying another sentinels before falling back to the surface.

"You'll have to teach me that bomb trick sometime," the Chief said, taking out a sentinel of his own with the last of the ammo in his battle rifle. "I'm out!" he cried, slamming the butt of the weapon into another sentinels, destroying the optical camera governing the sentinel's aim.

From above them, there was a cry of, "Enough!" Instantly, the sentinels stopped moving and the Monitor lowered itself to them.

"Monitor," Cortana said from the Chief's helmet.

With a green glow, the Monitor replied in a female voice, "Yes. I am 249 Vindicated Pandemic—construct of Forerunner facility 02. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Reclaimers."

"Reclaimers?" Samus questioned, still not sure what this new and scary future held for her.

"Yes, Reclaimers. You are a descendent of the Forerunners. It is obvious you are here in response to the aborted firing sequence five and a half Terran years ago. I am glad you are here. The time is at hand. Please, come inside," the Monitor said.

"Hold on," the Chief said, knowing full-well the purpose of the Halos. "We aren't activating anything. We're here to destroy this installation."

Changing from green to red, 249 Vindicated Pandemic said, "I'm afraid that will not be possible. Now please, Reclaimers, come inside to the Silent Cartographer."

"Wait!" Samus started, but was unable to finish her sentence when the Monitor transported her and the Chief inside the large structure.

The Chief turned to Samus, the shadow from the large obelisk in the center of the room cast over his helmet and said, "We have to find a way to destroy this place, but obviously we can't do it now. I have no ammo and we need to secure your ship for an escape route. Let's find the Index and get out of here."

---

Back outside, the Monitor said to what seemingly was itself, saying, "They are in. Shall I continue?"

As only the Monitor could hear, a response was heard.

_Two shall enter, for never to return_

_Your fealty to me, thou have justly learned_

_Sentence over, thou must burn_

Crashing hard to the metal walkway to the library, 249 Vindicated Pandemic's green light slowly faded, saying, "Thank… you… master… The Flood… released…" Then the light was gone.

---

Back at Samus' ship, Adam was compiling information on the attack which sent the ship into the future, starting with the attack from the space pirate ship. With a molecular configuration readout on the ship's HUD, Adam calculated the contents of the blue liquid on the piece of space junk, then said, "Calculating frequency, contacting Samus. Lady, unknown substance positively identified as Gemini Phazon. Substance highly reactive to DNA strands, recompiling from the genome an organism's entire physical structure. Highly dangerous, return to the ship immediately."

The internal sensors began wailing, with Adam crying, "Intruder alert!" as the blue substance puddled across the floor of the ship and up the wall to a cabinet containing a vial labeled _Metroid DNA. Slated for destruction at Galactic Federation Science Station 12._

Oozing across the surface of the glass vial, the Gemini Phazon immersed itself with the Metroid DNA, reforming into the creature. The larger the Metroid got, the glass began to crack, then break. Free floating in Samus' ship, the Metroid performed cellular division and split into two Metroids. Then four. Eight. Sixteen.

The klaxon of the internal sensors still wailing, one of the Metroids smashed through the hull of the ship and onto the surface of Beta Halo. The rest of its daughter cells followed.

---

Inside the library, the Chief and Samus were trying to make their way to the Silent Cartographer to retrieve the Index when Samus received a garbled, static-filled transmission from Adam.

"_Skkkkkt…_ unknown substance… _screech… _Phazon," the message read, then faded.

"Dammit," Samus cried, worried with the word 'Phazon' coming through loud and clear, yet worried about the rest of the transmission. "Adam? Adam, are you there? Please respond."

Worried, the Chief looked to her and said, "Is something the matter?"

Samus looked back at the Chief with a look that gazed at him through her helmet and right into his own helmet-hidden eyes. "Yeah. All hell just broke loose."


	4. Chapter 4

"We need to get the Index and get out of here, if the Phazon is as dangerous as you say," Cortana said to both the Chief and Samus.

Cortana had been fairly quiet since meeting Samus. Sure, she'd given the Chief her opinion on the situation. It was her rationale subroutines keeping her level-headed, even though there was a murmuring inside of her that was too obvious for her ego to realize: it was jealousy.

She'd scoffed inside at all the jokes the Chief had cracked to Samus, aggravated it wasn't like their other excursions to deadly battlefields. But what bothered her even more was how the Chief wasn't business-as-usual as he normally was. Perhaps it was because the war was over. This incursion was just to keep a new war over the rings from starting. Kind of like how the Battle of New Orleans still happened after the peace accords for the War of 1812 was signed.

There she was again, letting her mind wander. It was the reason why her program only had a lifespan of seven years. She rambled. If allowed to, she'd calculate Pi to a googolplex. Her thoughts were her years. Each thought counted down the years of her life, so she tried to stick to the subject. And that was the problem—a lot of her thoughts were about Master Chief. She'd said there was more to picking the Chief as her Spartan—his luck—but what she had spent these years denying herself was she was in love with the Chief. She cursed her emotion protocols.

"If the Flood is here…" Samus started, wary of finishing her statement. "If they merge with the Phazon, then we've got problems."

Samus believed the solitary lifestyle of a bounty hunter was getting to her. Sure, she had her clients, but they weren't her friends. Her whole life was ripped from under her when her parents were killed on the K-2L colony. But then there were the Chozo. She was happy growing up. She was taken care of, but that didn't change the fact she was a human in a non-human community. There was camaraderie, but no friendship.

That's what she felt she had in common with the Chief, though. He seemed to be cut from the same mold. She didn't know much about him, but his demeanor convinced her they'd been raised in a similar crucible.

What was coming over her? Was it the longing for human interaction she was enjoying, or was it something more? She'd heard the stories of battlefield romance, but she quickly discounted that, not due to the apparent lack of battles on this ring, but because of her solitary nature. "No," she thought, chastising herself—refusing to accept the idea she could be falling for a man she hardly knew. Not only that, but she didn't even know his name or even how he looked. There was nothing to base a relationship on, other than her own misplaced feelings. But what if... what if those feelings were coming from the right place after all?

The Chief turned around, listening to the silence in the library, hoping they were alone on the installation.

What bothered him the most about meeting Samus was how it was in total contradiction to every bit of his training in the Spartan II program. _Never question orders. Follow them to the letter. Your CO is the final word. You are an instrument of war._

It bothered him that some of his own feelings were re-emerging. He'd never been in love. Sure, there was the one time he went to Okinawa, Japan on liberty with two other Spartans when he was younger where he learned the physical aspects of love, but there was something inside of him stirring. Samus wasn't a superior officer like Cortana and Commander Keyes were. She was an equal and that struck him as something he'd never encountered before. Well, not since Nicole-458 disappeared. He had spent his life following orders. Now that was betraying him.

There was a howl in the library. It made Samus and the Chief stop in their path. The Chief was hoping it was just air stuck in a pipe, echoing in the large, empty facility.

"Be on your guard," Master Chief said.

Samus sighed, agreeing with him without saying a word.

"How long ago did you say the last weapons firing was? You know, the one that destroyed all life in the galaxy?" Samus asked.

"From what 343 Guilty Spark told us on the Halo we destroyed," the Chief paused. "About 100,000 years ago."

"Then that would make the Chozo one of the first sentient species in the galaxy after the calamity," Samus replied, presupposing.

The Chief turned to her. "You keep talking about these Chozo, but we've never encountered them."

Cutting him off, Samus replied, "That's because they're an extinct species. The Phazon killed them off. Drove them insane. I owe my life to them. They raised me after my parents were killed by space pirates at Earth Colony K-2L. My suit is of Chozo creation, also."

"Then they possibly could have rivaled the Forerunners in technological advancement," Cortana said.

Still confused about these terms Master Chief and Cortana were saying, Samus asked, "Who are these 'Forerunners' anyway? That Monitor said we were Reclaimers, descendents of the Forerunners. Were they humans?"

"Yes," Cortana replied. They were killed during the first firing of the weapons. Other than a few scant logs by four Forerunners: Mendicant Bias, Offensive Bias, The Librarian and Didact, not much is really known about them outside the Ark."

Samus was still trying to take it all in. "Then humanity didn't originate on Earth."

"Probably not," the Chief said.

That made Samus feel better in a strange way. Knowing that her own solitary life wasn't tied to a planet she felt no connection to. Rarely, if ever, did she go to Earth. Sure, she'd been to a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston, but that was at the behest of a Federation psychologist to try and reconnect her to her humanity.

Because of this, she felt even more connected to the Chief. She felt they were both walking on the paths presented before them, dictated by their childhoods. Besides, Earth in the 21st century was a grimy place anyway. She preferred to be outside.

Avoiding stewing in her own feelings any longer, Samus was desperate to change the subject. "So, your armor. It's nice. It's not as sophisticated as mine, but it's nice."

The Chief grunted cheerfully. It was also the first time anyone was interested in him, even if it was about his suit. "It's called MJOLNIR Mark VI. It's reinforced heavy-duty polytanium. I'm insulated by a thin layer of gel coating, which insulates me from intense heat and cold. And it weighs over 900 lbs."

"Not to mention hard impacts," Cortana interjected.

"Yeah, that too," the Chief said. "What about yours?"

"It's Chozo armor. It was given to me before I left," Samus said. "There was a story the Chozo told me about a woman in green armor fell from the sky, half dead. It was the first human the Chozo had ever seen. She had no memory of who she was, other than being called '458.' The Chozo studied the armor and improved upon it with skills they possessed naturally—like curling into a ball."

"So that's where it came from," the Chief responded.

Inside the Chief's helmet, Cortana asked him, "Could she be talking about Jessica-458?"

"Who knows," the Chief whispered. "She did disappear in a slipstream, and from the readings went back to the early 21st century."

"Then Samus' suit is a product of a cause-effect paradox," Cortana said.

The Chief grunted. "Then how come mine isn't as advanced as hers?"

Cortana sighed. "Probably because we weren't advanced enough as these 'Chozo,' she keeps talking about."

The Chief could sense the bitterness in Cortana's voice. "Don't be like that," he said.

Walking through the library, the two of them were lost in conversation. What they didn't realize is they were approaching the center of the Silent Cartographer and the Index.

"This is it," the Chief said. He pulled Cortana from his helmet and inserted her into the console.

Cortana appeared in front of them in her 20-feet-tall glory and it made Samus a little queasy. She was jealous of her. Cortana had been with the Chief for years. Years she wished she'd been with him.

"Ok," I have the Index," Cortana said. "Now let's get out of here and take care of this Phazon."

The Chief pulled her from the console and reinserted her into his helmet. As they were turning around to leave, out of the corner of the Chief's eye, he noticed a bit of movement. "Huh?" he grunted.

"What is it, Chief?" Samus asked, looking in the same direction.

He walked a little closer to whatever it was and said, "Hold on."

From out of nowhere two small Flood infections flew down from the ceiling at Samus. The first knocked off her helmet, sending it to the floor with a crash. The second grabbed her by the hair and injected its flagella into her ear.

"AAAAAAAH!" Samus screamed, trying to swat away the strange parasite attached to her head.

She fell to the floor with a hard thump, still writhing in agony.


	5. Chapter 5

_Editor's note: In chapter 2, it seems when I wrote the paragraph, "Right, Chief. Nice suit," Samus said. "Now can you tell me where we are? I've never seen technology like this before. Not even from the Chozo. It's amazing." Many people took that as Samus complimenting the Chief's suit and noting it was superior to hers. She mentioned his suit and then asked where they were. The technology in which she was referring was the Halo, not Master Chief's suit. I should have been more clear and made more of a separation between the two. __I hope that clears up everything._

---

The Chief rushed over to Samus and kicked the infection attached to her head across the room.

Samus didn't move. Lying there unconscious on the floor of the library, with blood running down her face from her afflicted ear, the Chief searched the room for more signs of the Flood.

"Sensors don't detect anything," Cortana said.

Picking up Samus up by torso, the Chief began shaking her to revive her. "Come on. Don't do this Samus," he said.

"She's showing no signs of infection," Cortana said. "Boren's Syndrome?"

The Chief kept patting her cheeks, trying in vain to get Samus to wake up. "Looks that way."

Finally, Samus groaned. Blood still dripping from her ear, she mumbled, "What was that?"

Thankful she was OK, the Chief said, "The Flood. Its initial infection form. We've got to get out of here before any more arrive. Come on."

"Wait," Samus said, still too weak to stand. "You have to help me."

The Chief was scared. He didn't show it, but deep down he felt a fear he'd never felt before. It wasn't from the Flood. It was that something bad might happen to Samus. "What? Tell me what I should do."

She was pale. Samus raised her hand to the side of his helmet. "Take… this off." She rapped on his visor with her index finger.

Always conscious about his appearance, the Chief was wary of her request. However, he did as she asked and unlatched the back of his helmet, pulling it off. He was beginning to understand why, but in a way, it still bothered him.

"Brown hair," Samus said. "I think I expected that."

Samus pressed her thumb to her forefinger, mashing a small button. In an instant, her hand and forearm were revealed through her suit—the metal folding itself up into the armor.

Touching her hand to his warm, sweaty face, the Chief felt a chill. Then the chill became painful. Samus was draining the life from him. In an instant, she released her grip on his face. She regained her color, the blood on her ear dried up and she was able to stand.

Standing with her, the Chief, helmet-less, rubbed his face, knocking the feeling back into his head. "What the hell was that?"

Samus ran her hands across her face and through her long, blonde hair scratched her scalp with her feminine fingers.

"It's part of my fused Metroid DNA. Metroids have an innate ability to regenerate, but only at the expense of the person they're attached to. I hated to do it to you, but if I hadn't, I would have died," Samus said, ashamed of what she'd just done.

What she'd just done bothered the Chief. He had a right. In the instant he felt the life leave his face; a wall went up between him and Samus. He pinched his cheek again, regaining more sensation.

Getting down to business, the Chief put his helmet back on his head. Samus did the same. Without much other word, he said, "Right. Let's go. There could be more Flood around."

Still ashamed, the metal of Samus' suit reformed around her slender hand and forearm. She sighed and picked up her helmet, putting it back on.

The Chief started running down the corridor. Still slightly weakened, Samus followed.

In the Chief's head, Cortana said, "I knew something about her wasn't right."

He didn't reply.

There was an all too familiar shuffling sound from down the hall. The Chief heard it loud and clear. The Flood was coming toward them. And he had no weapon.

"Dammit!" he cried.

Catching up to him, Samus said, "What's the matter?"

"No weapon," the Chief replied.

From her leg, Samus pulled out a small pistol. She fired it, producing a similar beam to her gun arm. Turning it around, she pressed a small button, exposing a blue energy sword. "Use this," she said.

The Chief took it from her and began firing at the oncoming brood. "Just shoot everything you see," he said.

Samus reconfigured her weapon, causing her gun arm to glow a violent red color. The Chief could feel the heat radiating from it.

She charged it, then fired at the Flood. A large, rainbow-colored beam about six feet tall came from the end of her arm, obliterating every oncoming enemy swarming toward them. "That can't be all of them," she said, running back the direction they came. "I can't do that again for a while. Now come on."

Master Chief followed her, fending off the strange-shaped Flood coming after them.

"Chief, these Flood mutations don't look like any of the Covenant we encountered during the war. Or any Marines, either," Cortana said, where only the Chief could hear her.

Reaching the outer bulkhead of the library, Samus focused her beam arm at the wall, like she'd done when they tried to break in, cutting a hole for them to pass through.

"Don't make it too big," the Chief said. "We need to re-seal it so the Flood can't escape."

He began firing Samus' gun wildly at the rampaging Flood. A true form fell from the ceiling right on Samus. Turning her gun around, the Chief brandished her energy sword and leapt at the true form, slicing it in two. The rotting flesh fell to the floor around them, giving off a putrid aroma.

Samus got up and resumed cutting the hole.

Once she'd cut a circle, she bashed the wall hard with her shoulder, knocking the piece of bulkhead to the ground outside. "Come on!" she screamed.

Master Chief followed, jumping through also.

Before they could pick up the piece of the wall to reseal it, a Flood member jumped through with them. Samus shot it with a missile, killing it. Chief pushed hard against the bulkhead, keeping it in place while Samus re-sealed the hole.

The danger passed, they walked over to the Floodling to observe its shape.

"It's like no Flood I've ever seen," said the Chief.

"That's because it's a space pirate," Samus said. "Let's get back to my ship to trace the flow of the Phazon." She started walking away from the Chief, worried about how their new relationship had drastically changed in the span of less than five hours. She wondered to herself, "My God, what have I done..."

Samus reached down and picked up the remains of 249 Vindicated Pandemic and said, "I'll repair it. Maybe we can get some information."

---

Getting back to the ship, Samus climbed to the hatch, followed by the Chief and entered the air lock. They hadn't said a word since leaving the library.

In the cockpit, Adam said, "Lady, I am thankful you returned. The blue liquid from the engine core breach is Gemini Phazon."

"Gemini Phazon?" she said, inquiring about this new strain.

"A hybrid strain of the original Phazon meteor. The Phazon has the power to re-animate DNA, then create copies of itself," Adam said. "It…"

"What Adam? What is it?" Samus exclaimed, hoping the system could complete the thought.

"It re-animated the Metroid DNA. Then it split into 16 copies of itself and breached the hull."

The Chief ran his hand over the hole in Samus' ship. "Looks like we've got bigger problems."


	6. Chapter 6

Samus reached down and lifted a ring on a hatch from the diamond plate steel flooring of her ship and pulled out several pieces of bulkhead. She gave them to the Chief and flatly said, "Here. Start repairing the holes in the ship."

Without word, the Chief took them and walked to the hatch, leaving to repair the hole in the ship's hull.

Samus took the broken 249 Vindicated Pandemic to the back room and placed it on her work bench. She took off her helmet and pulled the broach from her hair, letting it flow around her shoulders. Slowly removing herself from her bulky Varia suit, she breathed a sigh of relief being out of it. Scratching her left thigh, she sat down at the bench and started working on the broken Monitor.

Outside the ship, the Chief was slowly patching the hole in the hull. He and Cortana had been in a debate about Samus since he'd left the ship.

"I told you she wasn't to be trusted. She tried to kill you. She's as dangerous as these Metroids she keeps talking about," Cortana said bitterly.

The Chief sighed hard, unable to process his feelings. "I know that. But she would have died. I mean, it hurt like hell, but she must have had a reason to do it."

"That doesn't mean you should trust her," Cortana said.

He sighed again. "Remember when we got back to Earth? I almost killed the Arbiter, even though he was our ally. If it weren't for the Sergeant Major, God rest his soul, holding me back we'd probably be lurching around in _High Charity_ as part of the Flood."

Cortana was silent.

Master Chief wanted to trust her. He really did. But how could he dismiss what she'd done to him back in the library? Cortana was right. She'd injured him, but he didn't think she'd kill him. It did hurt, but…

He'd had an epiphany.

Unlatching his helmet, he pulled it off and placed it on the ship's hull. "Hrm," he muttered.

The Chief could hear Cortana from his ear-bud. "What is it?" she asked.

With absolute clarity of thought, he said, "She didn't try to kill me. I saved her life. Without me she would have died there, with that infection killing her."

Cortana felt something inside of her programming delete itself. The feeling, she thought, in human terms, was equal to a knot in the pit of her stomach. Then she thought to herself, "Then I truly have lost him." But what she failed to realize, due to her attachment to the Chief, it was the process of her program's decay. It had started – she was dying.

He'd finished the job and crawled back through the hatch to the ship. With a new take on the events that had transpired, he smiled and walked into the back room. Samus was standing there in soft cotton shorts and a tank top. He felt something inside him writhe, happy to have seen her. "Wow," he thought to himself.

Without looking up, Samus pushed the magnification glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and said, "Are you finished, Chief?" She didn't even notice he wasn't wearing his helmet.

"Yeah. I just finished," he replied.

That made her look up. She didn't hear him vocalize through the suit. She heard his voice—that sweet, tender voice she'd only heard truly while he was accosting her in the library.

Samus smiled. "You're handsome," she said.

Master Chief walked over to her. "Listen, err, I, umm…" He fidgeted, rubbing the back of his head, his fingers running through the short, regulation haircut. "I want to apologize for what happened earlier. I'm just happy you're alive."

Samus' face got brighter and smiled a smile so large it hurt her cheeks.

The Chief went on, mumbling and stuttering through his apology, which was quickly turning into him professing his feelings. "If you hadn't… I mean, if we weren't…"

She walked over to him and put her slender finger over his mouth and said, "Shh, no more words."

The Chief snaked his arms around her taut waist, smashed his face against hers and kissed her hard.

Samus didn't pretend she was startled. Kissing him back, she put her arms around his neck over his bulky suit, holding him as tightly as she could squeeze the polytanium.

Cortana was still in his ear. He pulled the ear bud from his ear and dropped it on the work bench.

Samus grabbed the metal latches on his shoulders and snapped them open, never breaking her kiss with the Chief. The breast plate loosened itself from his chest. Pulling away from him, she took it off his armor and dropped it on the floor. His chest was hairy and covered with thick, deep scars and a tattoo of "117" across his right pec.

Pulling off the gloves from his suit, the Chief ran his hands up the back of Samus' tank top. In the back of his mind he was thinking about many things—the Flood, Metroids and Phazon—but knew the ring was huge. The Flood was trapped in the library and the Metroids were far away. It made him feel a little guilty that he wasn't abiding by the tenants of his Spartan training, but there was no war. There was an enemy left to fight, but it could wait, so he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind in favor of the beautiful woman standing in front of him.

He kissed her tenderly again, then moved down to her neck, caressing the small of her back.

Samus moaned, then forced four words past her trembling lips. "What's your name, Spartan?"

"John," he replied, then continued kissing her neck.

"John," Samus reiterated, closing her eyes surrendering to what was about to happen.

---

Samus heaved heavily. She and the Chief were sitting in the bathtub of her ship in bliss from the events of the last hour. Her chest heaved against the Chief's back as she rubbed his chest with a luffa sponge. Her long legs were snaked around his waist and they were silent—reveling in their happiness.

The Chief finally broke the silence, "What do you think we should do?"

"I'd love to just say 'leave,' but you're right about this ring. We've got to destroy it," Samus replied, her chest heaving against his back again.

"Then we should get back to business," he said, getting up from the tub, dripping with water, stark naked. He grabbed a towel and began drying himself. He would have been content to just leave the ring, too, but he had a duty to not only the wonderful woman in his life, but to the galaxy. He knew he'd just killed the mood, but he didn't plan on letting anything happen to Samus.

Still in the tub, Samus pulled a knob near her arm. The tub sucked out the water and cycled it into a large container on the wall, heating it—purifying it for another use. She stood up, reeling from the way the Chief had ended their moment so abruptly. Had she done something wrong? Had he fulfilled his purpose with her? "No," she thought. "There's no way he'd do that. It's not in his nature." Even so, she still cast her eyes to the cold metal floor as she took a towel from a drawer and wrapped herself in it under her arms.

The Chief was back to business. It was time to eliminate the threat. Quiet time would come again. He'd gotten his armor back on, then put the earpiece back in his ear. Cortana didn't say a word.

Samus had dressed again and started re-integrating herself into her suit. She was still quiet. She hoped deep down in her soul the Chief wasn't through with her after she had given herself to him.

---

Fully dressed and prepared to go, Samus had finished the repairs on 249 Vindicated Pandemic. The Monitor whirred to life, its green light vibrant. "Oh, hello again!" it said in a cheery, yet distorted female voice.

Samus pulled off the glasses she was wearing and called to the front of the ship, "Chief, it's working." Since the Chief hadn't said a word about the two of them making love, she'd gone back to being professional with him by calling him 'Chief.'

He walked to the back room back in his helmet, stood in the doorway and leaned against it. "What does it know?"

The Monitor levitated off the desk, blipped and beeped, then said, "Thank you. You have liberated me from the master who controlled me since 521 revolutions ago."

"Master?" Samus questioned, furrowing her brow.

"Yes," the Monitor answered, its feminine voice still adjusting to the recent repairs. "When the Flood integrated the alien species into its collective, I was captured and taken to the hive mind."

"Gravemind," the Chief said flatly.

"Yes," 249 Vindicated Pandemic said. "A Gravemind. A horrible creature. Speaking in poetry all the time. Does he know how poetry bores me?"

Still probing it for further information, Samus asked, "Do you know what alien species the Flood integrated?"

The Monitor thought to itself for a moment. "Unknown, but they were absconding with Forerunner technology. Totally unacceptable."

Samus and the Chief were silent.

Going on, the Monitor said, "They came to this installation looking for a piece of an alien artifact—most likely from species 44823. The Chozo."

Samus' eyes widened and said, "The Chozo were here?" Rife with questions, Samus began to stammer. "Where is this artifact? What is it? How far away from here are we?"

"Hold on," Master Chief said, cutting Samus from her babble. "Monitor, can you lead us to it?"

"Yes Reclaimers. Follow me." The Monitor floated off without another word. "Come, come."

Samus got up from the table and put the helmet back on her head. She was staring directly at the Chief. "Chief…" she started, but was unable to finish.

"Yeah?" he replied.

She sighed. "It's nothing. Nothing. Nevermind."


	7. Chapter 7

Samus was a tumble of emotions inside. She was excited at the prospect of a new Chozo artifact on the ring and dreaded what having space pirates assimilated by the Flood meant for her future back in the past. Then there was the longing pain deep within her because the Chief hadn't mentioned anything about their encounter back on her ship. It worried her still.

Cortana was still angry with the Chief and had barely spoken to him since sleeping with Samus. Finally breaking the silence between them, Cortana spoke only to the Chief.

"I think you made a mistake," she said.

Samus and the Chief were following the coordinates to the Chozo artifact. "What makes you say that?" he replied where only she could hear him.

There was obvious aggravation in Cortana's voice. "Because there's more control these Metroids have over her than she's letting on. She almost killed you, John. I don't know what I'd do without you. And then the next thing you do is have sex with her."

"I trust her," the Chief replied. "I'm sorry if you can't accept that, but there's a human quality I can see in her." What he'd just said struck him as a little odd. It had slipped out before he realized what he was saying. What did he know about humanity? He'd been trained from childhood to be a soldier—abducted from his home as a child and put into the Spartan program. Then it hit him, Samus was teaching him humanity.

What was odd about that was neither of them had grown up with a connection to their humanity. With the Chief's training and Samus' life with the Chozo, that was an element they'd been missing in their lives. They were teaching each other humanity—reclaiming it from deep down within themselves.

As the two of them got closer to the artifact's coordinates, Samus broke the silence with the Chief. "We're almost there. Just over that ridge and 12 meters down," she said.

She was still second-guessing herself about the Chief. Why hadn't he said anything? "It's nothing," she'd say to herself, but the girl in her told her there was more to it than that.

The Chief wanted to say something to her also, but something held him back. Maybe his indoctrination was kicking in again. He had an objective to complete and nothing would stop him from it. Even though Samus was fully capable in a fight, he felt an innate need to protect her. He wanted to tell her he cared, but every time he opened his mouth to say it, he deflated like a balloon without a knot tied on the end. He knew the time would come. In time, he would say something.

Cortana, though, was truly bothered by Samus. There was her jealousy, because she had feelings for the Chief. To him, Cortana was just a trusted adviser and friend—not to mention a computer program. However, there was something else to it. The Chief seemed to be ignoring the fact her program was decompiling. It wasn't something he'd do though, and if he was thinking about it, he hadn't let on.

"We're almost there," Samus said, approaching a chasm mere meters in front of them.

Master Chief hadn't said a word, just acknowledged they were almost to their target.

Suddenly, the Chief's shields dropped. "Chief!" Cortana cried. "Your back!"

Samus jumped, poised ready to strike, when she noticed a small jellyfish-looking creature attached to the Chief's armor. "A Metroid!" she cried.

"What the hell?" the Chief said, exclaiming, trying to swat it from the back of his suit.

Samus switched her weapon to a new beam. The Chief could feel the cold coming from the it. She fired a shot at the Metroid, freezing it to the Chief's back. Grabbing it, Samus pulled hard to get it to detach from his armor. Shattering into several pieces, the Metroid was still wiggling in the slowly-thawing places.

"Allow me to introduce you to a Metroid," Samus said gruffly.

Cortana began to scan it through the Chief's internal sensors. "That's strange," Cortana said.

"What is it?" Samus asked, hearing Cortana through her audio frequency.

After a few seconds of silence, Cortana said, "It isn't showing any readings. No life signs, no discernable protein structure, no energy signature. It's almost as if there's nothing there."

Samus passed her hand over the Metroid, taking a scan of her own. Nothing displayed on her HUD. "You're right, Cortana. It doesn't register on my scan either."

From the pit, 249 Vindicated Pandemic flew up, saying, "Ah, Reclaimers. You're here. Come, come."

A loud squealing sound came rushing up from the chasm before them. Before either Samus or the Chief could count, more than 100 Metroids began attacking them. Copying Samus' plan for killing them, the Chief changed her backup gun to an ice beam and began shooting wildly, freezing them—delivering the coup de gras with a smash from his fists.

Samus, firing herself, had dispatched more than 30 Metroids in less than five minutes, alternating between her ice beam and missiles, shattering the beasts into millions of pieces.

With remnants of half-frozen gelatinous ooze all around them, a blood-curdling scream rocked Samus and the Chief. Flying up from the depths of the pit, a giant Metroid, approximately 10 times larger than the smaller ones appeared. Suddenly, the still-living smaller Metroids stopped attacking, fleeing from the mother Metroid, which had yet to make its move.

"Dammit!" Samus cried. "I'm out of missiles!"

Puzzled at why the Metroids left, Samus never took her eyes from mother Metroid. "That doesn't look like any Metroid I've seen before."

"That's because it's been assimilated into the Flood," the Chief said. "The little ones are scared."

Floating in front of them was a giant, Phazon-infected, Flood-controlled Metroid.

"Oh damn…" Samus mumbled, terrified.


	8. Chapter 8

They stood resolute in front of the Metroid, yet worried about their fate with this new cross-breed brooding over them.

"Don't make a move," the Chief whispered.

Samus, without taking her sight from the beast, said, "It can see our body heat. Moving doesn't matter."

The Metroid simply floated over the chasm, not moving. It baffled Samus, because normally Metroids attacked at the first sensing of another organism. They never waited to strike. "Must be the Flood controlling it," she thought to herself.

Emerging from the pit were two pairs of tentacles.

"Gravemind," Cortana said to both Samus and the Chief.

From the pit, words began to echo to the surface.

"_Predator mine, a servant must be._

_The perfect hunter, one with me._

_Find your souls and set them free."_

"So what do we do?" Samus asked, ruminating over the Gravemind's speech.

The Chief puzzled for a moment, trying to determine a course of action. "Hmm," he mumbled. Finally saying, "What's the most powerful weapon you have?"

"I have a super bomb," Samus replied.

"How long does it take to detonate and what's the range?" the Chief asked.

The tentacles of the Gravemind slithered around the Metroid, causing it to grow again. Ooze dripped from the mandibles of the Metroid.

"Two-second fuse. The range isn't large, but the flash is huge," Samus said.

The Monitor, 249 Vindicated Pandemic, said, "And I can summon sentinels to keep the entity occupied."

"Great," Samus started. "Then do that. I'll use my super bomb and trail our escape."

Several seconds passed, the Metroid still growing larger from the infusion of energy from the Gravemind.

"Any time now, Monitor," the Chief said, anxious to get away from the creature.

"Patience, please, Reclaimer," 249 Vindicated Pandemic replied.

From the opposite side of the pit, hundreds of sentinels loomed on the horizon.

Stunned, the Metroid turned around, wailed wildly and flew to the oncoming horde.

"Now!" Samus cried as her body crunched down into a small bomb. A small incendiary device appeared and began glowing. "Run Chief!" Samus screamed as she rolled away, dashing from the impeding explosion.

Doing as she asked, the Chief did a 180° turn and ran to his limits away from the pit with Samus beside him rolling in morph ball form.

Behind them, the super bomb exploded, throwing them both into the air, flying from the source of the explosion. In mid-flight, Samus' morph ball malfunctioned as her body convulsed back to full size.

They were both quiet and not moving, sprawled out on the grassy ground. Then the Chief's leg twitched. He was fine. However, there was static in both the Chief and Samus' headset. Cortana didn't seem to be there.

"Samus," the Chief whispered. She didn't reply.

Another tense moment passed before the Chief was able to stand. He floundered over to Samus. Her suit wasn't moving, but through her visor, he could see her blinking hard and mouthing to him to take off her helmet.

As he removed it from her head, Samus said, "It's locked up. I can't move. Get me out of this."

"What happened?" the Chief asked, pulling pieces of metal from her suit.

"I was too close to the explosion. All the mechanisms are frozen," she replied.

Still removing her gear, the Chief said, "Yeah, I can feel the weight of the suit bearing down on me. I think my stabilizers are about to fail."

He was quiet.

"And I don't know what happened to Cortana," he finished.

Samus' feelings on his last statement were two-fold. She was sorry a member of the team and the Chief's friend was gone, but was happy the two of them were alone.

Finally getting her from the suit, the Chief removed his own helmet, exposing his sweaty forehead. Suddenly, a loud squeal came through his ear bud. He ripped it from his ear with a groan of slight pain.

Samus began to hear a tapping through the static in her own ear bud.

"What's that?" She asked, tapping it. "Wait… It's old Morse code. Cortana's OK."

The Chief was detaching his armor, pleased his friend was still there, but sad she couldn't communicate.

Samus pressed a button under the skin of her left forearm. "I just remotely called my ship."

"An emergency beacon. Nice," the Chief said, standing in his boxers. "Any chance you have some male clothing on your ship?"

From over the top of a hill, Samus could see her ship approaching. "Yeah. My last assignment called for me to work with a partner. He left his suitcase on board. I don't think he'll mind too much," she answered.

The Chief nodded approvingly as they climbed the hatch to enter her ship. He quickly dismissed what she'd said about a partner. It did bother him, then reminded himself it was part of the bounty hunting job. Sometimes you have to work with a partner.

Samus jumped into the cockpit and extended a claw arm outside the ship, picking up their armor from the ground, moving it to her storage room.

The Chief was in the back changing. As Samus came into the room, he said, "So what will we do now? Without armor?"

Samus opened a cabinet with a blue spandex suit inside. "The same thing I always do when the going gets tough."

"Dance?" the Chief joked.

She grinned and laughed at him. "You know, it may look funny, but when I was on Planet SR-388, I had to run around dressed like this for a long time."

Samus smirked.

"You look handsome," she said, seeing the chief dressed in a navy blue t-shirt and jeans.

The Chief rubbed the wrinkles from the shirt and said, "Thanks. I haven't dressed like this since before the war broke out. It's kind of comfortable."

He began rummaging through his lump of broken suit, but came up and kissed Samus, pecking her lips playfully.

Inside, Samus was happy, but kind of shocked at his playfulness, wondering if his feelings were still there. They were, but she still didn't understand the Chief was scared of losing her, so he stayed so focused on completing the mission at hand.

Taking his helmet, the Chief pulled Cortana's program card from it and stuck it into a card reader on the ship's computer.

A few seconds passed. Samus started to believe the two programs were incompatible. Suddenly, Cortana displayed on a view screen.

"Can you speak?" the Chief asked.

Cortana shook her head disappointedly, then pointed down. A text box appeared on the screen. "I'm talking to Adam, and he's telling me he's going to help me repair my speech subroutines, but I have to get out of the system soon because my program is too large."

"How long should that take?" Samus asked.

The text box cleared, then filled again. "Our estimates are approximately one hour. Now you two should find that Chozo relic."

"Is there any sign of the Monitor?" Samus asked.

The box emptied again. "None," the box read. "But the ship's scans show there's another entrance to the cave on the far side of that pit."

Samus nodded. "Great. We'll fly there now that Adam is finished with the computer repairs on the ship."

"Right," Master Chief replied. "Samus…"

"Yes?" she replied, wondering if he was about to explain his feelings.

"Do you have another weapon?"

She nodded, hiding her disappointment. Next to her clothing cabinet was a small weapons locker. She took a plasma pistol and tossed it to him. "It isn't much, but I'm not in a position to use it often."

The Chief handed her the gun he'd been using since the library and eyed his new weapon. "Great. Now let's go."

Samus bit her lip. "Wait," she started.

The Chief turned around, standing halfway in the ship's cockpit. "It's OK. I know what you want to talk about. We'll talk on the way."

She smiled.


	9. Chapter 9

Samus was mad.

Since talking with the Chief about what had happened between them earlier in the day, it opened the floodgate to them discussing past relationships. There was no reason for him to throw her last assignment in her face. There was nothing between her and the partner she'd taken along.

As they flew to the cave, it was quiet in the ship.

The Chief hated the silence. If he'd had his way, he'd be HALO jumping into a hot drop zone than braving the silence with Samus. He knew it was stupid to bring up the men in her life. It was her business and not his, but he felt threatened by it.

"We are approaching the landing site," Adam said, cutting the white-hot silence like dry ice.

It startled her. She jumped when he said it.

"Thank you, Adam," Samus replied.

The Chief sighed. Finally mustering the gumption to say something, all he could force out was, "Let's do this." It was a veiled attempt at motivation.

Samus walked to the air lock without responding. Undoubtedly she saw it as still having the upper-hand in the fight.

Before the Chief could follow, the console beeped. He turned around to check the source. It was Cortana, still mute.

The display read, "There's a high level of Flood activity inside that cave. And I still can't pinpoint any Metroid lifesigns." The screen cleared. "Be careful… John."

The Chief smiled. Cortana was pleased she could finally see the smile. "Thanks. See you soon."

Cortana thought to herself, "At least he didn't say goodbye."

Getting his mind back on Samus and the situation at hand, he went through the air lock and went through the hatch. From his vantage point on the top of the ship, he could see Samus walking into the cave by herself.

He jumped, landing hard, he ran after her, saying, "Samus! Wait!"

Samus stopped, jerking around to meet the Chief head on. "What? Think I can't handle myself? Think I need a partner to hold my hand on every mission I take?"

The Chief stammered, unable to respond.

Samus railed into him again. "Because I'm damned good at what I do. Bounty hunting may have been outlawed God knows how many years ago, but I can still hold my own in a fight, damn you."

"I'm sorry!" It was the only thing the Chief could blurt out. Somehow, he knew it wasn't enough.

She was red in the face, absolutely livid at the Chief's earlier insinuations. How dare he question her sex life—or, what he didn't know, apparent lack thereof. Her anger probably made her a little more headlong going into the cave. She didn't have the cool head she normally had when approaching a potentially dangerous situation.

She pulled a scanner from her spandex suit and began scanning the inside of the cave. The Chief followed behind her in silence with her puny emergency pistol in his hands. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but somehow he knew he needed to stay quiet until she cooled off.

Still scanning the cave, Samus led them deeper and deeper into the dark, following the Chozo energy signature through the geologic stratum.

It had gotten to the point where they were so deep in the cave there was no more discernable light from the entrance. Samus didn't have a flashlight. Neither did the Chief. The only thing she could do was turn around her scanner and use the dim light from the display to light their way. For the Chief, it was too creepy. For all they knew, the Flood or Metroids could be skulking in the dark around them.

It stayed dark as they stumbled in silence. They reached a room that seemed to be totally alien in the cave. There was just enough light from the scanner to show it was a kind of metal and in proper geometric proportions. Finally feeling that he could contribute to the conversation, the Chief said, "It looks consistent with Forerunner technology."

Suddenly, the room filled with light, illuminating the area around them. On the walls, there were windows to a larger room with a large energy stream in the center. But that wasn't what fascinated them. In the back of the small room was a large bird statue, holding two chests in its talon-like limbs.

"Chozo…" Samus muttered.

Respectful of Samus' find, the Chief stayed back and watched Samus approach the statute. She opened the left box and her eyes widened.

"What is it?" the Chief asked.

Without turning from the find, Samus simply said, "It's a bomb. More specifically, a tri-cobalt device. Enough power to destroy a planet."

The Chief seemed relieved. "Or one damned big ring." He wanted to acknowledge his curiosity and ask about the other, but knew he'd better keep his mouth shut.

Samus opened the opened the other box and blurted, "Oh hell yes."

The Chief, finally feeling bold walked up next to her and put his hand on the small of her back. "A pile of metal?"

Samus grinned, seemingly totally finished with her bad mood, and said, "No silly. It's armor. Corbomite armor."

"Oh," the Chief said, happy for her, but unaware of the extreme significance she was attributing to this new armor.

She turned to him and said, "John, a bomb does me no good if I don't have a deployment device. A suit."

Thinking to himself, "Isn't it kind of unsafe to put a bomb and its key in the same room?"

"I was augmented by the Chozo. Only me or a member of the tribe can open these cases," Samus replied, integrating herself into the new suit. "It was built to withstand the impact of the tri-cobalt device.

The new, cold steel-blue suit covered her from head to toe, but was very different from her Varia suit. The helmet looked similar to the Chiefs, but the armor itself was sleeker than how he'd seen her clad before.

She took the bomb and put it behind her back. It integrated into the suit, disappearing seamlessly into her person.

"Are we ready?" the Chief said, kind of jealous he didn't have new armor.

Before Samus could respond, she looked through the glass and saw the Flood swarming beneath them. "Yeah. We really need to get out of here."

Master Chief half-heartedly touched the Chozo statue and said, "See ya, bird man." He didn't know, but before he knew it, the Chozo statue began to shake—pieces of stone began to shake free of the bird emerging from its geologic binding.

"You woke it up!" Samus cried, charging her weapon with the missile port open.

"I didn't mean to!" the Chief exclaimed, angry at his idiocy.

The bird came to life, standing massively over them, screaming like a crazed hawk. "Shoot it!" Samus screamed.

Firing wildly with the emergency pistol, the Chief seemed to be drawing its fire. Samus' aim was true, hitting the Chozo in the back with a super missle, blasting a hole in its body.

It fell to the floor with a thump, blood running at their feet.

"Let's get out of here!" Samus ordered, moving toward the door.

Suddenly, the amassing battalion of Flood beneath them started to wail. Then, there was a voice.

"_Genius race with eyes unclouded,_

_On this ring, my family not crowded._

_Chozo mystery now unshrouded."_

A pure form Flood crashed through the glass and drank the Chozo's blood. The Chozo corpse erupted to unholy life, the hole in its body closing on itself.

The pure form didn't seem interested in Samus and the Chief who were too horrified to move. An infected Metroid flew into the room and attached itself to the Chozo. The giant bird then split into two complete Chozo entities, then four, screaming wildly in the process.

"It's the Gemini Phazon," Samus said, pulling the Chief's arm to leave.

They turned away, running from the room as fast as possible. Samus led the way, her new light scope in front of them lighting the way.

The Chief turned around mid-run to see if there was anything behind him. He could see nothing, but heard the familiar slimy sound of the Flood. Suddenly, he tripped, falling behind. "Samus!" he cried.

"John!" Samus said, turning to see the Chief as his body was consumed by the oncoming horde of Flood.


End file.
